Summer of Fire - Linda Jacobs [122]
When she grabbed the two-foot steel spanner, she heard a man call to her and realized that someone was coming to save the truck. Without waiting to explain, she ran back toward the easement.
At the fireplug, she didn’t dare take time to assess Steve and the others’ situation. The look on Garrett’s face was enough as she read, “Hurry,” on his lips. The sound was torn away by the North Fork.
Clare fit the wrench head over the five-sided lug on top of the fireplug. She took three turns with her right hand to tighten the grip of the jaws, leaned into it, and prayed.
It was too late to outrun the fire, Steve realized. The North Fork relentlessly filled in the portions of black canvas not yet painted. He’d seen Clare across the burning barrier, for a bare second, but she was out of sight now.
He and the others had one last chance. To leap through the low, burning brush of the easement and sprint through the unburned woods to the Firehole River . . . immerse in the cold water and let the fire rage over their heads.
Steve began to run, hoping that his fire retardant clothing would prevent major burns. Within a few yards, his knees reminded him that he had already done far too much insult to his old wounds this day. Each step was as though a blade stabbed through his calf and emerged from the top of his thigh. He felt the heat, just ahead where he would have to plunge into the flames.
Clare waited for him, so close, and yet cut off by the enemy they’d been combating all summer. With a surge of anger, he decided that he, by God, was not going to die this way. For the first time in years, he had something to look forward to.
As he redoubled his efforts, he suddenly felt something he believed was impossible. Stinging droplets pelted him, spraying his face and forearms. It was rain, no, of course, it wasn’t; great black clouds were in the sky, but it sure as hell wasn’t raining.
He stopped, stunned. Falling water mingled with his sweat and dripped down his neck to his collar. Moru held out a hand, palm up, and watched the drops land on his pale palm. The smile lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth grew deeper.
The conduit down the center of the easement spewed great fountains. Where water landed on the fires, a cloud of steam arose.
Clare saw them running along the pipeline. After thirty yards of slogging through thick brambles, Steve lagged the others.
The tall man gasping for breath waved thanks when he passed Clare and Garrett. The two young people didn’t stop running even when they were in the clear. As Steve staggered onto the pavement, his legs buckled.
Clare knelt beside him. “Give me a hand, Garrett.”
He bent to help.
Steve struggled to rise on his own, but Garrett grabbed him beneath his arms and pulled him up.
“Can you walk?” Her voice carried that element of business she used in emergencies, but she heard a trembling kind of timbre that said she was running on empty.
“Not sure,” Steve managed.
“Put your arms around us,” she urged, “just in case.”
Garrett hunched down so that the disparity between his and Clare’s heights would not throw Steve off balance.
“I wish to God those sprinklers had been on,” Clare said. “It would have saved me nearly having a coronary.”
Steve’s arm tightened around her shoulder. “You?” He gave a grin that turned into a grimace when he put weight on his right leg.
“Power lines can be restrung,” Garrett said. “I’m sure they needed the water pressure to defend the inn because it can’t be replaced.”
“Did it . . .?” Clare stopped. Had all their efforts to save the building she loved ended in a smoking ruin? She ran to the plug and turned off the flow, hoping it might help keep up pressure at the inn.
Ahead, the other scientists stared at something in the distance. Clare moved forward to see around the pines that blocked her view and she saw through the red haze. The inn was still there, with flags snapping on the ramparts.
Yet, all was not the same. A blackened ring would surround Old Faithful, long past all their lifetimes.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
September 7